Drusilla Wants Her Hair Bobbed
by cagd
Summary: It's the 1920s and short haired women who wear makeup and smoke are all the rage. Drusilla wants to be in style. Spike's not helping so she takes things into her own hands.


(Author's Note: Paris of the 1920s was the epicenter of a fashion revolution – isn't it always? Until then, not so much as an ankle was shown, makeup was for prostitutes, women didn't smoke, and hair was long on women. After WWI, hemlines rose drastically, and female hair went masculine short – the hair in particular causing quite a stir, almost as big as the sight of a knee. Bohemians were the precursors to our hippies, living in wretched little rooms and living for art's sake while starving and smoking clove cigarettes.)

**Paris, 192-**

Drusilla wants her hair bobbed.

Drusilla wants to wear a dress that shows her knees so that the whole wide world may see how pretty they are.

Drusilla wants to wear lipstick and rouge and paint her eyelids prettypretty blue.

Drusilla wants to smoke. (_Perhaps_.)

Yes, Drusilla wants all these things.

But most of all, Drusilla wants her hair bobbed, snipsnip!

Isn't that right Miss Edith?

Miss Edith doesn't want her hair bobbed.

Miss Edith thinks smoking is vulgar.

Miss Edith thinks likewise about short dresses, and doubly so about knees, rolled stockings and painting one's face like a whore.

Miss Edith says nice people don't talk about knees and paint their faces, but she thinks that Miss Drusilla's knees are very fetching and should be displayed and that perhaps a little rouge is not a bad thing on the proper occasion.

Isn't that right Miss Edith?

Miss Edith says that perhaps Miss Drusilla should keep up with the times and show her knees and bob her hair and wear paint on her face like a bad girl, because these days, all the good girls look like bad girls and the bad girls look like bad girls and who can tell them apart?

All the latest magazines say the same thing: Drusilla is old fashioned. Drusilla is boring.

Drusilla does not want to be boring, right Miss Edith?

Drusilla is tired of watching her Spike look at all the girls with bobbed hair who show their knees, smoke and wear lipstick with his tongue hanging out and a lovely bulge in his trousers that isn't aimed at her.

It's wicked, it is!

(Drusilla loves wickedness, but not this sort of wickedness.)

This wicked says, "Drusilla, you are boring."

Boring is worse than three-day old rats left out in the sun.

So Drusilla asked her dark star as they were preparing to go out for dinner one evening in Paris, a city that Drusilla loathes because everyone tastes of garlic, "Wouldn't it be amusing if your Drusilla bobbed her hair?"

And her dark star, who loves Paris almost more than he loves his Drusilla and refuses to leave because he wants to be a Bohemian and write poetry in a cold and drafty attic because that is what Bohemians who write poetry do, said, "No, not in a million years, pet. It's not feminine, bobbed hair on my best girl; I won't have it!"

To which Drusilla said, "Then why do you only bite girls that do?"

"'S different, pet." Said our dark star as he pulled on his coat.

"Pooey!" said his Drusilla, "In that case, go bite the moon for all I care - I hope that the man in the moon tells his dog to bite you on the nevermind- _hard!"_

"What _are_ you going on about, pet?"

"Drusilla's not going." Said his Drusilla, "She would much rather eat rats and read magazines in our dirty attic than go out with a dark star who dribbles over girls who smoke, paint their faces and cut their hair like boys. Drusilla hopes that her dark star gets run over by a taxicab, too!"

"Suit yourself, pet." Our dark star said as he put on his dumb looking beret, which is a French hat that looks as if someone sat on it while our dark star was still wearing it, "I've got better things to do."

This is not good, it is not working, so Drusilla then said, "Angelus would let us bob our hair!"

"Bloody hell!" said our Spike.

Then he slammed the door behind him.

Bang!

It made all sorts of dust fall down from the ceiling of our dirty little attic.

… mean old dark star!

… silly, silly Spike!

… bad Willie!

I hope it's a big fat taxicab with a big fat driver who backs over you three times after he runs you down – splat. (Serve you right, William, for keeping your Drusilla unfashionable and boring!)

Drusilla decided that if Drusilla's dark star won't let her get her hair bobbed and be fashionable, she will teach herself to smoke.

Smoking is almost as good as getting one's hair bobbed.

(That will teach our William to tell his Drusilla what she may or may not do with her hair!)

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Smoking is easy

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First you take a cigarette from the packet that he keeps on the floor by the mattress because our Spike was so very vexed with his Drusilla's reasonable request that he didn't notice that he had left them behind...

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Then Drusilla must tap the cigarette on the packet three times as her sweet William does: tap tap tap – why is this? Drusilla doesn't know.

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(Nor does Drusilla care.)

…

Drusilla must then strike a match, no better, she must use Spike's new toy: it's called a lighter.

She goes scritch scritch with the lighter and holds the flame to the end of the cigarette.

Then she takes a deep puff.

Drusilla gags because it tastes very nasty, like stale cloves mixed with cat's business.

But Drusilla will puff again, again and again because she knows that her dark star will hate her doing it, which makes smoking taste all the better, even if the attic now stinks of burning cloves.

Oh dear, smoking makes Drusilla feel dizzy but not at all in a nice way.

Drusilla must lie down on the mattress that her dark star stole for her and watch the dusty ceiling spin round and round as cherubs burn and the fish melt, lovely!

Oh dear, now Drusilla smells burning hair - she forgot to put the nasty, smelly cigarette out... how exciting, the mattress is on fire- so are all her dark star's poems!

So is Drusilla!

How very, very pretty!

Crash, the door falls off its hinges; it is her Spike; he is very cross, he does not like it when he forgets his cigarettes – he likes to smoke almost more than he likes to fornicate in public places. "Bloody hell pet, you're on fire!"

Then he threw the water from the nightstand pitcher on Drusilla's head and put her out.

See? Smoking is very, very easy.

But smoking is also very bad for Drusilla's hair.

It left Drusilla's hair all patchy and dry, like an old broom that a bad dog has chewed on.

Just thinking about it made Drusilla want to cry, so she did.

She cried a _lot_.

Her dark star held her and was very, very nice to his Drusilla after that even though she burned up all his poems - he took her to a barber, who bobbed her hair - very fashionable!

As she was looking rather bare, our Spike painted her face for her, just like all the girls in the magazines, and painted her nails to match – how very lovely!

Then he gave her a short dress that showed off her pretty knees, and a long rope of pearls to go with it, with very nice shoes with sparkles on the toes and stockings that rolled down Drusilla's thighs just right.

When he stood back and looked at his new no longer boring Drusilla, our sweet William said, "Poodle, do whatever you please with your hair from now on; just so long as you leave my fags and lighter alone and stay away from my manuscripts."

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Well…

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"All right!" said his Drusilla. Not smoking or burning up poems is a fair price for no longer being boring. Right Miss Edith?

Yes, agreed Miss Edith, and you have very pretty knees, too.

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Now to find a way to convince our sweet William to leave nasty Paris and be a Bohemian somewhere nicer and take his Drusilla with him as the taste of garlic does not agree with her!


End file.
